Just after 7.30am on Monday morning, my wife and I stepped off the sleeper train from London in Glasgow Central Station.
The working day was well underway and we were approaching the end of a journey, by eight trains over two days, from Lake Garda. We decided to have a breakfast coffee before the last leg home to the Ayrshire coast by the Ayr line.
We had come from Lake Garda through Milan, Brig, Bern, Basel, Mulhouse, Paris and London. In the course of this journey, we had passing contact with thousands of people of all nationalities. Milan and the Paris Eurostar station, in particular, were busy with weekend travellers.
We decided to bring forward our final journey and boarded a Stranraer train which was going our way via Kilmarnock. We were immediately confronted with a loud group of a dozen or so adult males and females in their late 30s, who broke open the strong lager, commandeered the centre of the carriage and began a loud card game punctuated with even louder profanities. This began at seven minutes past eight in the morning and was still going on when we gratefully left the train. On two occasions the train conductor passed through, checking tickets, and treated them with indulgence and a smile. No-one else thought it was funny. It was the longest half-hour in our European train travel. Unfortunately, our baggage and our tiredness dictated that it was better to adopt a low profile and fume rather than leave. The behaviour of these people was selfish, positively anti-social, unsophisticated and a very rude awakening to our return to Scotland.
We met no such boorish behaviour anywhere else in western Europe, nor did we meet any on our outward trip. We were ashamed to be associated with them by nationality and want no part of a so-called nation that smiles benignly at and fosters such appalling behaviour – at any time of day.
That morning’s Stranraer train was a sad place to be.
Dr David Sutherland,
1 Lochend Road,
Troon.
Congratulations to ScotRail for having the foresight to put extra trains on the Gourock line for the Tall Ships in Greenock. Just one small thing: maybe the trains could actually stop at each station rather than whizzing past bemused customers at Greenock Central and elsewhere on the line. Only in Scotland.
Gerry Maguire,
26 Caledonia Crescent, Gourock.
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